Pasadena, Sylmar firms to design, build first segment of California high-speed rail line

Tutor Perini Corp. of Sylmar and Parsons Corp. in Pasadena are part of a joint venture that will design and build the initial 29-mile stretch of the California High-Speed Rail line (seen in rendering), running from Madera to Fresno. (Rendering courtesy California High-Speed Rail Authority for the Los Angeles Daily News)

Two Southland firms will be involved in the design and construction of the first leg of California’s 800-mile, high-speed rail system.

Tutor Perini Corp. of Sylmar and Parsons Corp. in Pasadena are part of the Tutor Perini/Zachry/Parsons joint venture, which has secured a $985 million contract with the California High-Speed Rail Authority to build the initial 29-mile stretch running from Madera to Fresno. The third partner is Zachry Construction Corp. of San Antonio, Texas.

The contract includes another $53 million in provisional funds to cover contingencies that might arise along the way, such as the disposal of hazardous materials.

“We’re very excited,” said Ronald Tutor, chairman and CEO of Tutor Perini, which will serve as managing partner of the joint venture team. “We’re a California contractor and it’s a California job, so there’s a lot of pride in it.”

Parsons will serve as lead designer for the project. Parsons Group President Todd Wager said his engineering firm is equally excited to be involved.

“We have delivered rail and transit projects around the world, and we are very excited to use our experience to provide such a system in California,” Wager said in a statement.

Construction is expected to begin early next year and Tutor said the work will involve 500 to 700 workers. The 52-month contract period began in August. Barring any unforeseen delays, the Madera-to-Fresno segment could be completed by late 2017.

California’s high-speed rail line will be the first in the nation. By 2029, the system will run from San Francisco to the Los Angeles Basin in about two hours and 40 minutes at speeds capable of exceeding 200 mph, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

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Depending on traffic conditions, that same trip could take as long as eight hours by car.

The system eventually will extend to Sacramento and San Diego, totaling 800 miles with up to 24 stations. The price tag for the entire project will be $68 billion, according to the rail authority’s 2012 business plan.

Rail authority spokeswoman Lisa Marie Alley said the money will come from a variety of sources, including state bonds, federal grants and private capital.

The southern portion of the line will route trains through Palmdale before looping west to station options in San Fernando, Branford Street and Buena Vista. The trains will end their journey at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles.

Alley said her agency has yet to determine which of those three station options will be chosen.

“We’re still studying environmental impacts and how those locations meet up with other transit systems in the area,” she said. “But we’re looking forward to working with the joint venture team on the first segment of our high-speed rail system.”

The rail authority said California’s high-speed line will “connect the mega-regions of the state, contribute to economic development and a cleaner environment, create jobs and preserve agricultural and protected lands.”

Providing the equivalent new capacity on the state’s highways and airports would cost more than double the investment to develop a high-speed rail system between San Francisco and Los Angeles, according to the agency.

And even if that were possible, it would mean building 4,300 new highway lane miles, 115 additional airport gates and four new airport runways at an estimated cost of $158 billion.

Not everyone is thrilled with the concept of high-speed rail in California and some fear costs could spiral out of control as the project moves forward.

Billionaire technology innovator Elon Musk recently unveiled rough plans for a “Hyperloop” that would ferry travelers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in about a half hour. The system would place them in capsules that could travel up to 760 mph inside a low-pressure tube. Musk said his entire system would cost about $6 billion.